Initiatives to define data exchange requirements for various processes of a construction project

The Information Delivery Manual or IDM development that aims to associate business processes with the IFC capabilities that provide specific support to the process.

The BIM/IFC user guide (IFC Anwenderhandbuch - in German) describing the use of Building Information Models in the area of architecture and building services (including test files)

The AGC: The Contractors Guide to Building Information Modeling was prepared in large part by contractors who spent time trying to sort out where to start. Their lessons are based on their experiences and were used in developing the guide. Although the process is evolving rapidly, the guide can serve as the basic framework for how to get started.

The GSA's BIM Guide Series For all major projects (prospectus-level) receiving design funding in Fiscal Year 2007 and beyond, GSA will require spatial program BIMs be the minimum requirements for submission to OCA for Final Concept approvals by the PBS Commissioner and the Chief Architect. At the same time, all GSA projects are encouraged to deploy mature 3D, 4D, and BIM technologies spatial program validation and beyond - at strategic project phases in support of specific project challenges.

Structural design

The completed IAI project ST-5 "Structural Timber Model" defined extensions for design and manufacturing of timber structures. See the project's homepage and deliverables. Proposed extensions are scheduled for inclusion in IFC 2x3G.

The North-American project ST-6 (homepage), develops a translation between the CIS/2 and IFC metamodels and is contributing to steel detailing related definitions in IFC 2x3 and subsequent IFC releases. Another ongoing project is the Japanese project ST-7, researching IFC for finite elements analysis and dynamics.

The North-American project ATC-75 on "Development of Industry foundation Classes (IFCs) for Structural Components" looks into improving the data exchange and collaboration for the structural engineering domain. It defined data exchange use cases and exchange requirements and is working with the software vendors in the domain in order to improve the capabilities of IFC exchange for engineering firms. This includes a benchmark test among structural modeling software.

Ontologies and support for multiple languages

The [IFD library for buildingSMART] is an ontology framework for building and construction related ontologies and dictionaries. The library also contains a mapping from IFC to ontologies within the library. The IFD library will also be used to maintain IFC property sets in multiple languages. IFD is available trough an open WSDL API documented [here].

As of version [2x3g] IFC can use globally unique identifier (GUID) from IFD. Adding IFD support to IFC only requires two new entries in the IFC model. Guidlines for how to implement support can be found [here].